The Simpsons Aesthetic
Not merely a cartoon, The Simpsons is the greatest social satire ever created. Amid the good laughs and hilarious characters is a highly sophisticated narrative vehicle that both plays to and subverts the genres it draws upon.
The Simpsons theme tune is a perfect example - whilst its hasn't won awards for musical composition it certainly should have for what it achieves in representing the thematic and conceptual base of The Simpsons is extraordinary. The theme tune is all cartoon theme songs and none. It perfectly parodies all well known American family-unit derived cartoons that went be for. Its a single short piece of music that is simultaneously uniquely identifiable and yet wholly an omage to likes of The Jetsons, The Flintsones,
On the level of visual aesthetics The Simpsons too has staked a highly specific and immediately identifiable visual style and indeed visual language. And yet at the same time the characters, the faces, of The Simpsons all form some directly tangible derivative of extant cartoon icons.
This is far more sophisticated than just a copying; its a highly articulate and well constructed structure for satirizing both the genre of Animation and the entrenched Representations of definitive American family.
The great scripts and one-liners of the Simpsons can not account for its massive success or artistic significance on their own. The aesthetics of The Simmons - its technically produced look, style, feel, motion and sound are all as directly crucial to its form as the lines and voices.
And now you too can embrace the Simpsons Aesthetic and Simpsonize yourself. This website -
www.simpsonizeme.com - attached to the Simpsons Movie, allows you to upload a photo of yourself and generate a Simpsonized avatar of yourself.
here's mine...
Posted at 12:00AM Jan 06, 2008
by Mike Jones in general |
